The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

LONDON, England: The baton dropped between the hand off with Carmiesha Cox and Janae Ambrose on the second exchange and the Bahamas team, featuring Devynne Charlton and TyNia Gaither, failed to complete their heat of the women’s 4 x 100 metres.

The performance started a barrage of disappointments for Team Bahamas on the final weekend of the 16th IAAF World Championships.

“It’s spilt milk now. We have to get over it,” said Cox, who indicated that she tried to catch Ambrose. “Tomorrow is a new day. We’re all still young athletes. We have a lot to go for us. It’s nothing I’m going to cry about. I will just brush it of and think about my next race in the future.”

Cox said the team, with Charlton on the pop off leg and Gither on anchor, were prepared to give it their best shot. However, the returning Purdue senior with just an indoor season to compete in next year, said she will not let it get to her.

Ambrose, a returning student at Auburn University, declined to offer any comments.

However, Gaither, coming of her eighth place finish in the historic women’s 200m final with Shaunae Miller-Uibo the night before, was quite frank in what she had to say.

“What can you expect when there’s no unity,” she said. “Too many voices. It’s kind of hard to really go out there and put something together last minute and I feel like that’s what happened honestly. It was really last minute. Everything.”

No doubt, the 24-year-old graduate from the University of Southern California, was peeved in the final outcome.

“We had the ability to make the final. That’s what irritates me the most,” she said. “We have the strength. We have the people. We just have to be on the same page and have one voice. Period.”

In getting the team going on her pop off leg, Charlton said it was just the nature of the event.

“These things happen,” said Charlton, who has ran a series of relays with Cox at Purdue. “We haven’t gotten together to look at the tape, but I’m sure we will with the coaches and pinpoint what went wrong.

“It was disappointing since I didn’t do as well as I wanted too in my individual event. I wanted to do something special with the relay team, but it just didn’t pan out that way.”

The Bahamas went into the event with a season’s best of 44.01 after the team of Devine Parker, Brianne Bethel, Tayla Carter and Gaither got seventh to qualify for London at the IAAF World Championships in Nassau in April.

Trinidad & Tobago went in with the eighth and final spot as the last of the two fastest losers in their season’s best of 42.91 for fourth place in the same heat as the Bahamas. Germany won the heat in 42.34.